Beauty is only skin deep

An enlightened soul sees beauty everywhere, in everything. It doesn’t get carried away by external beauty.

Today, while flipping through the pages of a book, I came across this beautiful quotation: “People who are attracted to you because of your pretty face or nice body won’t be by your side forever. But people who can see how beautiful your heart is will never leave you.”

This quotation reminded me of an old story. Let’s enjoy it in this edition of Biyani Times.

Once upon a time, a king and his queen lived in a grand palace. The queen was very friendly with one of her maidservants. The maidservant was also very loyal.

The queen had a very beautiful daughter.

The maid had a son who, one day, sees the princess in the palace’s garden and instantly falls in love with her.

He tells her mother that he wants to marry the princess.

The mother gets worried on hearing this. She could sense the approaching danger.

“A maid’s son can’t marry a princess,” she says.

“Then your son will remain a bachelor all his life,” replies the son.

That day, the ever-pleasant smile vanishes from the maid’s face. The queen realizes from the maid’s conduct that something is amiss. She asks but the maid reveals nothing. When the queen keeps insisting, the maid tells the truth.

“So, your son loves my daughter and wants to marry her. There is nothing to be ashamed of in it. Love is the song that a youth’s heart sings,” says the queen. The maid is surprised as she expected the queen to be furious with her son.

The queen says further, “Bring your son to me. I will give him some work, and if he accomplishes that, I will get him married to my daughter.”

The puzzled maid heads back home and tells her son about the condition laid down by the queen.

“I’ll do anything to marry the princess. Tomorrow, I will accompany you to the palace and meet the queen,” the son tells her mother.

Next day, he stands before the queen and asks, “Your Highness, tell me what should I do to win your daughter’s hand?”

The queen says, “Not much, dear son. You just have to spend one year in this palace. We will give you some holy scriptures which you have to read with full dedication.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

The maid’s son is then taken to a room where he is given Vedas, Purans, Bhagvad Gita, Ramayan and Mahabharat etc.

The son gets on the assigned work immediately. Time moves with its pace. Days, weeks and months pass.

Exactly after one year, the queen sends for the maid’s son and asks him, “You have completed one year in the palace. Hope you have studied all the scriptures given to you.”

“Yes your highness, I have gone through them all,” he replies.

“A year back, you wanted to marry my daughter. Is it still so?” the queen asks.

“No your highness, not any more,” the maid’s son replies, and continues, “Your holy scriptures have done a whole lot of good to me. When I first saw your daughter, I fell for her external beauty. But now I know that this beauty is only skin deep. We are not this body, we are a soul. The beauty of the soul is the real beauty. I thank your highness for making me an enlightened being, for giving me the true knowledge.”

With these words, the maid’s son leaves for his home without marrying the queen’s daughter.

The moral of the story is that we mistake physical attraction for real beauty. The external beauty fades with time, whereas beauty of the character and soul gets better with the time. So we should focus more on building our characters.